Qwen3-8B on RTX 4060: Tight fit (Sep 2026)

Conditional memory judgement for one configuration. Change context, quant, or engine and the conclusion can change. Configuration used on this page: GGUF Q4_K_M, 8,192 cached tokens, 1 sequence, engine llama.cpp. Status: Tight. Software: Not verified..

TightNot verifiedThis result is an estimate, not a measured trace.

Verdict on GeForce RTX 4060 8GB (desktop)

Only just: Q4_K_M is the one file that gets in. It needs 5.9 GiB–6.5 GiB at 8,192 tokens against 7.0 GiB of usable VRAM (after the driver reserve). Close other GPU apps first, and expect to cut context if the upper estimate is hit.

With Q4_K_M, the longest context that still fits at all (tight, no headroom) is about 15,965 tokens of a 40,960-token native window, one sequence, fp16 KV cache.

Published GGUF quants for Qwen3-8B on GeForce RTX 4060 8GB (desktop) at 8,192 tokens
GGUF quant	File weights	KV cache	Estimated total	Verdict
Q8_0	8.1 GiB	1.1 GiB	9.4 GiB–10.0 GiB	Does not fit
Q6_K	6.3 GiB	1.1 GiB	7.5 GiB–8.1 GiB	Does not fit
Q5_K_M	5.4 GiB	1.1 GiB	6.7 GiB–7.3 GiB	Tight
Q4_K_M (recommended)	4.7 GiB	1.1 GiB	5.9 GiB–6.5 GiB	Tight

Engine llama.cpp, one sequence, fp16 KV. File weights are the published GGUF sizes in the catalog. Totals come from the same calculator that powers the tool below; they are estimates, not a measurement of this setup.

Fixed page configuration

GGUF Q4_K_M needs 5.9 GiB-6.5 GiB at 8,192 tokens against 7.00 GiB net on GeForce RTX 4060 8GB (desktop), a tight fit. Q8_0, Q6_K, Q5_K_M are tight or over budget.

ModelQwen3-8B
HardwareGeForce RTX 4060 8GB (desktop)
QuantizationGGUF Q4_K_M
Context length (cached tokens)8,192
Enginellama.cpp
Concurrent sequences1
KV cache typefp16

Technical identifiers and share data

Modelqwen3-8b
Hardwarenvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-8gb-desktop
Quantizationgguf-q4_k_m
Share fragment for this identityv2.eyJzY2hlbWFWZXJzaW9uIjoyLCJjYWxjdWxhdG9yVmVyc2lvbiI6IjAuMy4wIiwiZGF0YXNldFZlcnNpb24iOiIyMDI2LTEwLTAyLjEiLCJjb25maWciOnsibW9kZWxJZCI6InF3ZW4zLThiIiwiaGFyZHdhcmVJZCI6Im52aWRpYS1nZWZvcmNlLXJ0eC00MDYwLThnYi1kZXNrdG9wIiwiZGV2aWNlQ291bnQiOjEsInF1YW50aXphdGlvbklkIjoiZ2d1Zi1xNF9rX20iLCJjb250ZXh0VG9rZW5zIjo4MTkyLCJjb25jdXJyZW50U2VxdWVuY2VzIjoxLCJlbmdpbmUiOiJsbGFtYS5jcHAiLCJrdlR5cGUiOiJmcDE2In19

Memory breakdown

Weight artifact: 4.68 GiB (5,027,783,488 bytes)
Raw KV cache: 1.13 GiB (1,207,959,552 bytes)
Engine extras / workspace: 0.13 GiB–0.67 GiB
Total estimated demand: 5.93 GiB–6.48 GiB
Net calculator budget: 7.00 GiB
OS / display reserve: 1.00 GiB
Remaining vs net budget: 0.52 GiB–1.07 GiB

6.48 GiB high estimate vs 7.00 GiB net

Enough memory does not mean this engine, quant, and OS will run. Support does not mean it will be fast.

Other published files on this device

Same model, device and context (8,192 tokens, 1 sequence, FP16 KV). Each row is one published weight-file set with its usual engine, sorted by memory.

Quantization	Engine	Estimated memory	Fit
BF16 safetensors	`vllm`	17.01 GiB–18.92 GiB	Does not fit
GGUF Q8_0	`llama.cpp`	9.36 GiB–9.98 GiB	Does not fit
GGUF Q6_K (Qwen)	`llama.cpp`	7.51 GiB–8.09 GiB	Does not fit
GGUF Q5_K_M (Qwen)	`llama.cpp`	6.70 GiB–7.26 GiB	Tight fit
GGUF Q4_K_M This page	`llama.cpp`	5.93 GiB–6.48 GiB	Tight fit

Assumptions that affect this result

Requested context is within the recorded native window of 40960 tokens.
Full-resident weight estimates use total parameters, including inactive MoE experts.
Weight bytes come from the selected weight files only, not from every file in the repository.
Download file size is not peak GPU memory. Runtime layout, allocator padding, and KV are extra.
Counted files: Qwen3-8B-Q4_K_M.gguf.
Context budget is the number of cached tokens per sequence (prompt plus reserved generation).
Concurrent sequences share one model replica; weights are not multiplied by sequence count.
KV dtype is independent of weight quantization unless you change it.

Open this combo in the calculator KV Cache

Sources

Qwen3-8B model card
config.json — revision b968826d9c46dd6066d109eabc6255188de91218
safetensors index — metadata.total_size=16381470720
Artifact repo Qwen/Qwen3-8B-GGUF
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series specs — Memory Size 8 GB GDDR6

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Qwen3-8B on RTX 4060: Tight fit (Sep 2026)

Verdict on GeForce RTX 4060 8GB (desktop)

Fixed page configuration

Memory breakdown

Other published files on this device

Assumptions that affect this result

Related pages

Sources

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